No Witnesses

What we do not know is how nature came into existence. Nature could be part of the plan for all that exists.
Can you present any evidence that nature just poofed into existence and the basis for that poofing?

Have you read that one person's CV?
I think I will stick with his opinion rather than yours.

HUH?Sorry but is there any meaning to that word salad?Nature came into existence?HUH?Do you see the word nature anywhere in what I wrote?

I do not deny evolution. I have stated many times on this board that I accept the theory of evolution. What I do not accept is the rationale that evolution has to be a natural phenomen that started out of nothing and is random w/o any purpose.I accept that complex life evolved over millions of years, but why do I have to accept dogma that states it cannot have been planned?Please show me the proof that all that exists was started from nothing by some type of natural cause.

I do not deny natural law, but you cannot prove how natural law was instituted. Did if begin out of nothing? Was it planned by God? There is as much support for my proposition than for the proposition that the universe and all now in it came about by something natural. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We see the failure to understand this play out in conspiracy explanations of the scientific consensus regarding global climate change and the conviction among creationists that they are under attack by a pack of satanic evolutionist scientists.Anyone who has done even introductory science or who has worked or studied alongside scientists understands the glee with which a scientist greets the opportunity to prove another scientist wrong.We find ourselves at our 21st century crossroads of Technology Love and Science Rejection in large part because most people never saw a lab or lecture hall full of bright-eyed, feral grad students working to prove somebody (or everybody) wrong about something (or everything).This is both one of the great engines of scientific discovery and a continual quality check on past work. Folks who think climate scientists are engaged in a global conspiracy to secure grant funding fail to understand that upsetting the apple cart with sound, replicable findings contrary to a scientific consensus will attract far more funding than a confirming result, however sound.Of course, we could say that creationists think scientists would engage in a global conspiracy to say things they don't really believe in order to serve selfish or other ideological interests because that's what they do.But that would be ungenerous.

if you can accept that, why do you have a problem with abiogensis? it's just the next logical step. Making the first replicating molecule is just chemistry - you might as well claim God's purpose in putting the molecules there....it has exactly the same intent and outcome. Nobody can prove that there's a plan or not. We can only look at the world we live in and say that what we see does not give the impression of planning. Evolution is too haphazard for anyone who's studied it to think that there is a plan behind it. If you accept evolution I'm sure you understand the reasons for saying that. No-one can, although you will have heard all our best theories on how such a thing can happen. On the other hand no-one can prove the exisitence of a non-natural cause either. So in the end, you have to consider the balance of probablities and conclude that given that everything we know comes about naturally and that religious explanations have failed, then the most likely origin of the universe is also natural.You may reject all that, but at least I can explain my position. I find that most believers had the belief before they developed reasons for it and so can not easily defend it, they can only fight off evidence against it.

No. But I've read the crap you post here. Has he? Has he expressed an opinion on all of the crap that you've posted here? If I recall, the reason your communication with him has been through emails is that he doesn't do forums boards. If that's accurate, obviously he hasn't read all of the crap you've posted here. Therefore, he's hardly in a position to judge whether the crap you've posted here is meaningless drivel demonstrating a complete lack of understanding of science or the scientific method. That's of course assuming you've had any communication with him in the first place.Even if you did accurately understanding something that one person wrote, that certainly doesn't show that you understand science generally. I have seen the crap you post here. You don't know the first thing about science.{AbE}And look, after posting my reply I notice a prime example of your crap, displaying a near total ignorance of the ToE: Tell you what, why don't you send that little clip to your pen pal and see what he thinks of it.Edited by subbie, : As noted

As you were shown repeatedly through that discussion.Cough, cough, bullshit, coughEdited by Theodoric, : repeatedly not correctly

This is not relevant to my point. Well, no. We see natural things, but not miracles, which means that if we want to figure out how anything in particular happened, all the evidence supports the proposition that it was natural and not miraculous.Now this is in fact your normal practice --- when the shingles come off your roof, you suppose that they were blown off by the wind and not removed by Evil Roof Pixies casting a spell. It's the default position. The wind theory is supported by the fact that we know the wind exists and that this is the sort of thing it does, whereas the pixie hypothesis is undermined by the fact that no-one's observed any pixies or any magic.There is, to be sure, a long-standing religious prejudice in favor of attributing some things, such as the origin of life, to magical causes, but this prejudice is not evidentiary.

I agree, but that is not what the word "theory" means. Theory means "tentatively accepted as true" or in other words, "as close to fact as we can get." First of all, science doesn't assume evolution is very random at all. There is a bit of randomness in exactly what mutations a particular offspring has, but that randomness is overwhelmed by the non-random aspect of natural selection, and the sheer numbers of offspring and mutations that occur in every generation.The only time randomness really takes a driver's seat is when a small population gets cut off from a larger one, or there is a bottleneck due to most of a species dying. In that case, the Founder effect comes into play and the randomness of exactly what variations are left can dictate a bit of how evolution can proceed.Secondly, we have a very robust theory (notice the word) on how evolution works based on mounds and heaps and mountains of evidence. For it to be drastically different than we've discovered would essentially negate our entire understanding of how our senses and mind react to the physical world. It would be akin to finding out that despite the fact that our computers work, we're actually entirely wrong about electricity.

NoNukes responds to me:

quote:

---

quote:

---

Except that it has. We have seen speciation happen both in the lab and in the field. That's "macroevolution."

---

​

I don't think that statement is quite true.

---

Then there is an easy way for you to find out:Do some research.This is a serious set of questions here: When was the last time you read a biology journal? When was the last time you were in a science library? Have you bothered to do a simple PubMed search for the latest articles on speciation?If not, what makes you think you are in a position to make such a claim? I mean that in the nicest way possible. One of the biggest problems with dealing with deniers of science is that they don't actually pay attention to the state of the science. They make claims about things that have long since been examined, trying to say that "nobody has ever studied this." Take Behe's book, Darwin's Black Box. He kept on saying that nobody has ever studied molecular evolution and gave specific examples that he insisted had never been studied.And yet a simple PubMed search yielded literally hundreds of papers on the very subjects he claimed nobody had ever published anything about anywhere.If we who understand that science doesn't say things it doesn't have evidence for can't keep up, how can we effectively discuss the topic? Let's not forget that part of the reason that the Dover case ended the way it did was because Behe once again claimed that "nobody had ever studied" various topics and he was presented with paper after paper that he claimed didn't exist. The pile grew so tall that he was literally hidden behind it.

quote:

---

I believe you've seen before and after conditions in circumstances such that an inference of macroevolution is inescapable.

---

Huh? If we've seen it happen right before our eyes, how is that not precisely the evidence you are claiming doesn't exist? Or are you trying to say that we didn't actually watch it happen? That is, are you intimating that we saw the grandparents and the grandkids and are only inferring the parents in between rather than actually seeing them?Because I'm talking about the latter. We have watched species create new species directly, seeing every single generation between the two. Reproductive isolation can be achieved in as few as 13 generations.

quote:

---

Please note that I am not saying that there is no conclusive, scientific evidence for evolution or speciation.

---

Then what precisely are you saying? We have seen speciation happen right in front of our eyes. That is precisely what you claim hasn't happened. But even the most simplistic of investigations into the subject will show that to be false. We've seen it happen both in the lab and in the field. So what else do you need? References?It's cliche, but have you bothered to look here:Observed Instances of Speciation
Some More Observed Speciation EventsSome of these instances of observed speciation events are over 100 years old. This understanding of how evolution works is nothing new.

quote:

---

quote:

---

Exactly what do you mean by "macroevolution" and why do you think we haven't seen it directly?

---

​

Macroevolution simply means a degree of microevolution that a creationist will not accept.

---

That's hardly a useful defintion, but that is the reality we are facing. It's the old definition of "kind." "Organisms reproduce after their 'kind'" with "kind" conveniently left undefined so that they can keep moving it up the taxonomic ladder every time we find evidence for evolution at the level they say it can't happen at.

quote:

---

Because "kinds" has no real meaning, macroevolution cannot have real meaning either.

---

Incorrect. Just because the creationists aren't being intellectually honest doesn't mean we have to be as perverse as they are. "Macroevolution" has an understood meaning by biologists: Evolutionary processes above the species level.

quote:

---

My remarks are intended to imply that we have not observed evolution directly either

---

And that is incorrect, too. In fact, you can demonstration evolution right in front of your eyes in your very own high school biology lab. It doesn't cost a lot and it doesn't take a long time to do it, either.Take a single E. coli bacterium of K-type. This means the bacterium is susceptible to T4 phage. Let this bacterium reproduce until it forms a lawn. Then, infect the lawn with T4 phage.What do we expect to happen? That's right, plaques should start to form and, eventually, the entire lawn will die. After all, every single bacterium in the lawn is descended from a single ancestor, so if the ancestor is susceptible, then all the offspring should be susceptible, too.But what we actually see is that some colonies of bacteria in the lawn are not affected by the phage.How can this be? Again, the entire lawn is descended from a single ancestor. They should all behave identically. If one is susceptible, then they're all susceptible. If one is immune, then they're all immune. This can't be an example of "adaptation" because if one could do it, they all could do it.But since there is a discrepancy, we are left with only one conclusion: The bacteria evolved. There must be a genetic difference between the bacteria that are surviving and those that died.Indeed, we call the new bacteria K-4 because they are immune to T4 phage.But we're not done. Take a single K-4 bacterium and repeat the process: Let it reproduce to form a lawn and then infect the lawn with T4 phage.What do we expect to happen? That's right: Absolutely nothing. All of the bacteria are descended from a single ancestor that is immune to T4 phage. Therefore, they all should survive and we shouldn't see any plaques form.But we do. Plaques do, indeed start to form. How can this be? Again, all the bacteria in the lawn are descended from a single ancestor that was immune to T4 phage, so they should all behave identically. If one is immune, then all are immune. There must be something else going on.Something evolved, but the question is what. What evolved? Could it be the bacteria experiencing a reversion mutation back to K-type? No, that can't be it. Suppose any given bacteria did revert back to wild. It is surrounded by K-4 type who are immune to T4 phage. As soon as the lawn is infected, those few bacteria will die and immediately be replaced by the offspring of the immune K-4 bacteria. We would never see any plaques forming because the immune bacteria keep filling in any holes that appear.So if it isn't the bacteria that evolved, it must be the phage. And, indeed, we call the new phage T4h as it has evolved a new host specificity.There is a similar experiment where you take bacteria that have had their lactose operons removed and they evolve to be able to digest lactose again.You might want to look up the information regarding the development of bacteria capable of digesting nylon oligimers. It's the result of a single frame-shift mutation.We have seen evolutionary change from the smallest shifts to new species, genera, even orders and families, all right in front of our eyes. We shouldn't hold this information back.

quote:

---

where a direct observation of evolution would mean directly observing the process that results in the population of offspring differing from its ancestor population due to diversity + natural selection. Instead we have simply observed parents and evolved offsprings and reached a conclusion of evolution.

---

And you would be wrong. We have seen exactly what you claim has never been observed.Seriously: When was the last time you read the journals? Why don't you know this?

I'm not a denier of science. I'm commenting only on the meaning of the word witness, which implies using direct evidence and minimal use (read that as essentially no use) use inference to reach a conclusion.For example when I see a red traffic light become illuminated, I have witnessed the red illumination, but I "only" infer that a source of energy has been provided to the bulb. I did not witness the latter proposition. In fact, I am not equipped with energy detecting organs that can observe electrical energy within conductors (at least not at a distance).As another example, we have only indirect evidence that fusion of protons occurs in the sun and stars, yet few doubt that fusion does occur.In my opinion, and I invite you to argue otherwise, none of the examples in your discussion involve observations that would meet the definition of witnessing macroevolution.First, I think it is important to note that macroevolution is not a scientific term to begin with."Macroevolution", which I'll loosely identify as an evolutionary process producing a critter that is a different "kind" than its ancestors is not a process that can be witnessed. Instead it is necessary to collect evidence from which macroevolution can be conclusively demonstrated. The experiments you describe seem to me of exactly that type.In short, I believe our disagreement is about the definition of witness and not about the science at all.

But is fusion the only mechanism by which stars emit radiation and generate heat? Could it be possible that some stars generate heat simply by friction between gases cause by gravity?

There is no fusion going on in brown or white dwarfs. They emit stored thermal energy left over from the fusion reactions earlier in the stars life.I really doubt that you will get something like our Sun from friction. Without fusion you will get something like Jupiter or Saturn. Once a star reaches a certain mass then fusion is unavoidable.